Recovery
Sterility is theme of the day, every day, in the base's med bay. Muted shades of gray tile the expansive floor of this fully functional medical complex. Soft, blue lights glow behind white wall and ceiling panels, encompassing the area in gentle illumination. It's a place of minimal sound, a quiet symphony of beeps, hums, and murmurings...distressed wounded aside, of course. Bacta tanks stand in neat rows within one section, more conventional beds and examination tables another. Each bed has the potential to be isolated by retractable domes, for those patients in need of short term quarantine or humidity control. A large, starkly-lit central workstation monitors the entire bay, equipped with interactive, holo displays and communication consoles. Medical droids mill about the interior, making routine checks of patients' vitals and system stats. Occasionally, a sentient medical officer is heralded from the central station to oversee special procedures. Currently, several new additions to the med bay reside in beds, some sealed, some not. All are currently receiving some sort of nebulizing treatment via respirator masks. The vast majority are members of Lt Halos' team, still recovering from noxious gas exposure suffered during their volunteer rescue mission. Spaced some beds away, however, are a few bodies not cut for the military lifestyle. Two blondes - the teenage defector and the ambassador - and a little brunnette. Unlike the masked and gassed women, the little girl is not sealed up in a pod, but rather sitting upright in bed and currently giving the droid an extremely difficult time with the changing of her foot bandage. Kovani eyes a med-tech suspiciously from a narrow slit between her ventilator mask and a blonde fringe badly in need of a good wash. The syringe being drawn and needle brandished elicits a tensing from the young Kovani, who holds herself with a maturity not due someone of her stature. Eyes flashing between pointy metal means of drugging and the wielder. A muffled demand to know nature of the mixture receives an assurance of anti-inflammatories and a dose of insulin. She nods a rather wary asset to having it jabbed in her arm, before the tech swaps out the needle and prepares a dose for the next patient. Enough time passed since the ambassador's return that the doctors could no longer keep out all those who were interested in seeing her and foremost among them was a representative from the military. The pipe he smoked, a new addition to his usual accessories, was put out and after tapping the ashes within it into a tray outside the medbay he stashed it inside of his jacket. Only then was Rasi permitted to walk into this complex and guided to where the ambassador was. An impassive look was given around at the injured and wounded before finally he spotted the ambassador and headed towards her. "I don't WANT anymore of that stinky cream!" Gabi vents, planting her hands firmly on either side of her hips with a 'twhap' against the sheet. Her lacerated foot is currently held hostage by the droid as a thin line of bacta cream is ejected from an ointment gun of sorts - one of its many appendages. "Bacta heals," the droid repeats, unphased by sentient tempers. "I don't want it! I want to go back to mom's bed!" The one-sided argument continues, to no avail. Ambrosia, on the other hand, is being more compliant. Thus far, at least. Outwardly, she appears without flaw, quite contrary to what's generally anticipated when a 'rebel' is freed from Imperial custody. Aside from the low wheeze, that is. Eyes closed, she seems almost at peace with the respirator suctioned onto her face. Breathe in...breathe out. Breathe in...breathe out. It's nearly a demand-free lifestyle, in this bed, and that's something she can relish for the moment. Gone is the pretty, puke-spattered gown, gone are the fanciful braids 'round her skull. She's been dressed in a plain, gray patient garb - little more than a pair of sheets cut from neck to knee, front and back, and looped together by three bands on either side - bust, waist, hip. It's an all-access pass for the droids to do what they need to do, regardless of patient consciousness. Her hair's been brushed flat, beneath her, but looks to be greased with sweat. Kovani presses a sterile patch to the small puncture left by the needle as she dismounts from her bed, plucking the weighty ox tank from its receptacle, she tucks the cold metal under her arm and navigates her way around to the loudly complaining Gabi. "Smells bad, huh?" she muffles through her mask as she takes up a position beside the girl, leaving a healthy and respectful gap between them. "I don't like the way bacta feels. Especially on my feet. Like...sticky goop." Droids. No bedside manner. "Did they put it on you, too?" Gabi inquires, pouting eyes turning towards the more sympathetic entity. She's quick to retract her foot when the droid unlocks it, and immediately folds it into her lap for closer inspection. One finger pokes at the gelatinous seal gluing her sole together. "I hate it in here. I just want us to go home. The food is gross. And how come Leo isn't here with us? He got hurt, too! He didn't even say goodbye..." Ah, the malcontent of youth. The sounds of Gabi's escalating complaints reach Ambrosia's ears, causing emerald eyes to flick back in their sockets. A heavy mist fogs the respirator as she issues a sigh. It hadn't been easy, detaching the child's hands from her limbs when they were separated for treatment. Since then, Gabi has crawled back into her bed a handful of times when staff wasn't watching. Can't blame the kid... Whirrrrrrrrrrrr. Ambrosia's bed inclines her torso at the command of her left index finger, giving her a 60 degree angle view from which to hawk-eye her youngest daughter...and the older one. There will be an extremely lengthy, awkward conversation in their shared future. But now's not that time. "Leo's the jedi?" Kovani asks, her head tilting expressively as she follows up the hook into a conversation. And if it serves to take a non-compliant young patient's mind off her treatment, all the better. "The one who was looking after you?" she offers her own insight on their shared predicament Kovani says, "I don't know about the food either. Its pretty much the same as I grew up with. My favourite used to be Meal-Replacement-Ration-12-Besh. I /think/ it was supposed to be a stew. Maybe I can find us some butter later, shared mine with..." she glances over to the hawkishly observing Ambrosia. ".../your/ mom. Made the vegetables taste of well...not vegetables. But butter!"" Gabi wrinkles her nose and, feeling the weight of mom eyes boring into her brain, turns to flash a disarming smile. It lasts till the count of four, until she realizes that the woman isn't buying into its falsehood. Puckering her face into a more honest mope, she casts her gaze downward into her lap, where the battered, drenched, sun-dried, and in need of a serious washing, krayt dragon currently resides. "I never had to eat this stuff before. But I guess it is better than what we ate in the cave before the bad man came. There I had to cook snails." Leaving her foot alone, Gabi picks instead at the scabs on her face. "Leo isn't just a Jedi, he's a /pilot/, too. We stole the bad man's ship to get away. I don't remember how we got there, though, away from the beach. It just seems like a dream, all the noise." Ambrosia softens her mom glare into a more relaxed expression. It'd been far too long since she could just kick back, relax, observe the kid. Kids. Kid. "Can't call /you/ a kid..." she mumbles behind the protective seal, watching Liora babysit. Kovani flicks her gaze less than subtly between mother and daughter, their coded exchange as impenetrable to her as any other outsider a fact made clear by the furrowing of her brow in an unsuccessful attempt to decipher it. "Wow, snails huh?" she chips in to the conversation with her half-sister. "...sounds like the stuff aliens eat." ah, the casual Imperial racism. Not that's untrue, many species /do/ eat grubs and snails as both delicacies and staples. But the implication that its something unpleasant is the product of pervasive Human High Culture. "Maybe they have ice-cream here..." she less than accidentally considers aloud. "Its good for throat irritation. You want mine come dinner?" Gabi examines Liora with a similar wrinkle putting dents in her girlish forehead. There's something old in those young, bright eyes, as it searches for the 'catch' in this too-good promise from a too-convenient companion. "No..." her voice comes quietly this time, glance flicking briefly in quick study of her mother's face before turning focus back on Kovani. "My throat isn't sore, but yours is because you breathed that weird stuff. I'm only here because I drowned. Sort of. Not really I guess, but almost. I don't even hurt anymore. Not much." The little tough gal folds her arms decisively over her chest and flops back onto her pillows. Lots of pillows. Origins known - given the number of beds missing pillows, at the moment. "How much longer do /you/ have to stay here?" *Beep!* The respirator timer chimes the end of its cycle and mask depressurizes with a soft hiss. Ambrosia's fingers fly to her face in response, eagerly peeling the thing off her cheeks and sucking a greedy breath of fresher air that doesn't reek of polymers. Kovani's own equipment is not far behind, she hauls herself tiredly back to her feet when Gabi flops down into her pillow-nest, affording the girl the full length of the table again. This round of treatment over, she's rather more patient in loosening off the straps holding the mask in place and breaking the moist seal it'd formed with her skin. Her shoulders roll in answer to the question. "I don't know." the delivery less nonchalant than she'd aimed for. "Guess they'll put me in a cell for a while once the doctors clear me. I don't know what'll happen after that..." she trails off, eyeing the door at the end of the room, whatever thought she had is quickly dismissed with a shake of her head. "Not if they value their careers," croaks the ambassador before a few coughs and spit liberates her throat from its numbed state of disuse. She blindly fwops the mask aside - missing the intended mark of the O2 gauge - but leaves it to dangle as is while leveling her gaze over the 'defector'. "They'll ask questions, sure. I won't stand in the way of that. But you're not staying in a cell." Starched fabric rustles as Ambrosia pushes herself into a more properly postured sit. She ignores the gaping of gown away from her belly and concentrates on pivoting her ass to swing her legs over the side. Look at those knees....all shiny and new. Bastards. "Why would they put you in prison? You were with Mother?" Gabi gives Kovani a 'look' like she's lost her noggin and scrambles out of her pillow nest to scamper-limp over to Ambrosia's bed. Krayt dragon gets left behind, guarding those pillows. Lying to children never ends well. At least, not when they can find out the truth so readily. "I am..." Kovani pauses for a moment to correct herself. "...was, an Imperial officer. I'm a doctor, actually. But I have a naval rank." she explains very matter of factly to the girl, watching her clamber into the comfortable safety of her mother. "They might want information about the Empire...which I don't have. To know if I’m a spy...which I’m not." she gives a sigh which rapidly devolves into a coughing fit all her own, triggering a medical droid's nursing care routines into providing a cup of room temperature water and instructions to sip only. "Our people have been fighting for a very long time." Liora tries to summarize the problem. "They won't trust me." that last part emphatically driven in Ambrosia's direction. Gabi's growing smile at having reclaimed mom's attention falters, and she shuffles around on her knees to take up guard against her mother's hip. A long, penetrating stare is fired at the 'imperial'. Emotions shift as she looks upon her new friend-of-the-moment with a fresh set of eyes. "The Empire is stupid," dictates the 'wise' eleven year old. "They think they can be the boss of everyone, but they can't. Like the bantha butt who tried to shoot me. He kept missing. Mom says th--" "Gabi," Ambrosia warns, voice dropping an octave as she lets Kovani out of her sights by a fraction of an inch to cast a slyly threatening glance to the mouthy child. "Don't be rude." She places a long-fingered hand over the fidgeting ones picking at her gown ties. They go still. "What Dr. Kovani says is true. She was with me, on board the Nemesis. But she wasn't cruel, and she isn't 'stupid'." Emphasizing that word back at Liora, she tilts her head back to jerk a rather satisfying 'crack' out of her neck. Shoulders roll and crackle next. This whole 'middle age' future didn't feel so far away, these days. It sucks. "They'll just ask her some questions to verify her story, our encounter, and about what future she sees for herself, outside the Empire. They might not trust you, at first, but they do trust in my unparalleled ability to become a menace, when I want to. *I* trust they'll relent." "It’s ok..." Kovani smiles a little more than half-heartedly to Ambrosia as she chides her daughter's bluntness. "...she must get her diplomatic style from you." The deadpan delivery makes it questionable whether that's a dry sense of humor or an equally blunt assessment. "The Empire isn't everything the Rebel.../Republic/ says it is." she tries to explain how any sane, decent being could belong to this evil tyrannical government, much less actively serve its purposes. "There're bad people." she concedes. "But good people as well. Sometimes...worlds, people, they /need/ a boss because if they don't have one, they do awful things. And they don't /want/ one, because they want to keep on doing awful things. The Empire doesn't give them the choice. We...it, makes them stop." Gabi shoots Ambrosia a resentful look when she thinks mother isn't watching, listening to the doctor spout her nonsense. Indeed, the apple did not fall far from the tree. "They can elect their own boss. Or just be nicer." I mean come on...if only the galaxy had thought of that solution! Just be nicer! "The Republic /asks/ if its worlds want to join. Or it gets invited. That's mom's job, to talk to people. She doesn't blow somebody up if they don't want to be part of the club. Neither does the Chief! She's a nice lady." Ambrosia's lips remain pensive, gaze turning a bit vacant as she listens to the poorly paraphrased banter of her government's ideology spout from her own daughter's mouth. So...tired. "Gabi," she interrupts again, this time more softly and with a pleading undertone. Leaning aside to nuzzle against the girl's ear, she succeeds by distraction. "I think I saw the supper cart come in through the door. Why don't you go see if they have something you'd like to eat? If not, maybe they can find some..." Gabi stops glaring at Kovani in favor of jumping on the rare opportunity - Mom's encouragement to be a pest. "Okay!" She takes an awkward leap off the bed, stumbling on legs that are starting to outgrow the rest of her and hobbles at high speed towards the poor, unsuspecting nurse. Kovani watches the little girl depart at high speed, drawing in a slow breath. "Im sorry." she offers contritely once she's out of ear-shot. "Im sure that's just what you want, an Imperial spy feeding your daughter the party line..." she sets her ox-tank down on the bed, it might be empty but it still weighs several pounds. "I /know/ the Empire isn't perfect, but it’s not a perfect galaxy either. The Hutts never asked to join the /old/ Republic. Don't look to be in a hurry to join the new one either. The Empire stands for order, for all the Rebellion hates it, it changed a lot of people's lives for the better. Brought stability and safety where the old Republic couldn't. Ask someone starving to death in an outer rim slum what’s more important - law and order, or elections." her newly freed arms find no more comfort than a self-administered hug. "I don't think I’m ever going to find a home surrounded by people who deny and revile that." Ambrosia listens more patiently to /this/ daughter than the one about to give the Wroonian cart girl an aneurism. Yeah...they probably wouldn't be held here much longer. "I lived sixteen, seventeen years on your side of the fence," the woman, happily unrestrained this time, eases herself cautiously off the bed and wiggles her toes on the cool floor. Looking down with the first sign of annoyance at her state of dress, she tugs at the bed sheet and cloaks herself in it. "I've lived about fifteen on this one, with a brief stint in no-man's land. I'm not claiming that we're 'perfect', either. I just..." Tucking her head, she wraps her hands and arms deeper inside the sheet, tightening her snug cocoon. "I'd like you, for you, to try and experience life from this angle. For a little while. I know I can't make you stay against your will and if you choose to go your own way, then..." she shrugs looking up with a film of wet shimmering between lashes. "It's your life. I'm just sorry to have missed it. All." That cocoon looked pretty good right now. Unadopted orphans learn to cope with things without needing to run to a non-existent maternal figure, but the urge to curl up in something enshrouding and shut out the rest of the galaxy is evident on Kovani's face as she avoids looking Ambrosia in the eye, the inside of her sleeve pulled up over the heel of her palm and used to wipe at her own. She straightens her back. Stand tall. Don't let them see you cry. "I..." her voice cracks a little, her head travelling evasively around the room in hopes of finding something so fascinating as to completely overwhelm this entire conversation, situation...she comes up empty and there's a tightening of her knuckles and a petulant teenage shake of energy, the desire to lash out at something which can't be lashed out at. "This is so fraked up." "Agreed," Ambrosia gushes it into a single syllable. She can't stop staring at Liora's nose though, to save herself. "I feel like I've been robbed the right to resent all that's happened in the last month, because if they hadn't murdered my staff and abducted me, then I never would have known...never would have met...but you would still have the life you knew, you were comfortable with." Squeezing her eyes closed, she relaxes half a hold on her shroud and dashes the tears away before Gabi - pausing in her bothering to glance their way - can see. "It IS fraked up. It absolutely is, and I am not prepared to cope with this situation. And I can't imagine how you..." Shaking her head, she presses heels of her hands into her temples and sits back on the edge of the bed. "You're not staying in a cell. You'll stay with me - us - until we can figure out another arrangement, if or when you want it." Miss saavy diplomat smartypants does NOT, in fact, have an easy solution at this time. Shivering, she drops her hands into her lap and casts a searching look towards the ceiling. Her voice wavers, tone a bit high and awkward. Maybe it's the chemical burn puckering her larynx. Maybe it's nerves. "I never understood why they keep the temperature so LOW in these things. First order of business is to acquire some real clothing. No. First order of business is to find the damn sanisteam. You up for a change in scenery?" "It’s ok..." The young lieutenant offers in as comforting a tone as she can manage. "...they train us for confinement. In the event of capture." she bites a lip pensively. "I mean...I’m not a Stormtrooper. But I can spend a few days in a cell on bread on water without losing my mind." she looks across the way to the young Gabi and back. "I don't want to make things more difficult for you. You didn't sign up for this, and im sure you didn't picture your homecoming with all this baggage. She's missed you, been frightened. Its obvious, she doesn't need some stranger in her home where she should feel safe." Yes. This is obviously all about Gabi. No adults here struggling to cope with boundaries. "Is...is that allowed?" she looks concerned. "I don't want to make things more difficult for /myself/ either. 'Oh look, the Imperial prisoner-defector-whatever has escaped! She is a spy after all!' "They /owe/ me," Ambrosia growls, attempted humor gone from her voice as she adopts a little more 'mom' into her stance. "I don't give a carmteek's kisser whether or not it's protocol. Which it's not." She gives pause, looking to the more diminutive part of this equation as the girl turns her back with finality on the cart, cradling a metallic cup of *something* in her hands. The cart girl has turned on heel and is marching right back to the door through which she'd entered. "I didn't picture a homecoming at all. I left Leo with all account numbers and very specific instructions as to Gabi's care and mother's care, as well as property listings, under the assumption that I was never coming home. You understand?" Tears brimming again, she stares, unblinking, in the hope they'll just reabsorb. "I'm happy to have baggage, if it means I get to be here to watch her grow another year. And you...are NOT what's going to haunt her dreams. She is /never/ going to feel safe again. Not entirely. Do you know what she told me?" Darn it to heck. Running her fingers casually through her scalp, Ambrosia smoothly masks the wiping of tears from her right eye. "A man --blew--up-- right in front of her, of Leo, two steps outside our apartment corridor. She said his leg made it all the way across the lobby before it stopped spinning. THAT was her last memory of home. Personally, I think the more bodies she has dwelling around her right now, the better she'll sleep." Kovani rises once more from her perch on Gabi's assigned bed, she brings her ox-tank with her. The krayt doesn't need to guard that. Nor does it need to invade Gabi's space. She moves quietly to take up a place not too far from Ambrosia's side. There's still an invisible barrier between them, a sense of familiarity lacking that prohibits close contact, but she does take her mother's hands. And squeezes it gently, staring at the floor in front of them both. "Thank you." Barely above a whisper. "...what're you going to tell her? About me, I mean? It’s not exactly a story fit for children with enough reasons to have nightmares already." "I haven't thought that far ahead yet. In detail, I mean." Ambrosia gives Liora's hand a small squeeze back and offers a tiny smile of gratitude. Invisible barrier indeed. "I'll have to, before high command hears about it and somebody talks and word leaks and it all trickles down. She /did/ use to ask for a sister. I just don't think she envisioned someone too big to cradle." A nervous laugh there, and she watches from the corner of her eye as Gabi slurps something out of the cup, pausing very much in the way of 'her' droid as it tries to zip along with a fresh batch of injections. Probably on purpose. "I expect she'll be a little confused and upset at first, and it will turn her perception of fatherhood, or lack thereof, completely on its head, but...she's a smart girl. She's going to suspect something eventually. I saw the way she was studying you...trying to place what's familiar." "You were right!" Gabi calls, resuming her trot, extending the cup - doubly served - towards them, words directed to Kovani. "They do have ice cream! I told her to go get more." Ice-cream cures all ills. First rule of pediatric care. Kovani chokes down the lump developing in her throat and leans forward to inspect the contents of the cup. She does not take it as an invitation to have some. The /clear/ indication is that more will be coming. But this, this is Gabi's. "Which flavours do they have?" she asks indulgently "...I like gobi fruit." offering her personal opinion on a matter of much greater important than galactic politics and philosophies of governance. Anyone who dislikes ice-cream is clearly a monster. Gabi stops, folded straw-turned spoon halfway to her mouth. The wad of camby berry cream sloooowly sliding towards its cliffdrop back into the cup. "I /wish/. She only had chocolate and camby berry." *Plop* Gabi digs it back out, succeeding this time in stuffing it into the awaiting maw. Hers. "I got one of each." An proud smile there, and she looks to her mother with boastful eyes. Who's the master negotiator now, ma? You scored a pretty dress, I scored *two flavors*. Ambrosia smiles, thinly, and reaches out to wipe a smear of what must be chocolate off Gabi's chin before tasting it for herself. "Mmm," she nods approvingly, but the shine all chocolate-lovers have in their eye is missing from the gleam in her own. In truth, she doesn't taste a damn thing. Screw you, peripheral nerve damage. Her hands fold behind her, letting the sheet fall away for now to conceal the routine tremor that begins anew in her left wrist. "Hurry and finish it, before we get cleaned up, hm? I think we're all a bit stinky. Bacta 'goop' or no." "Let it melt a little in your mouth though.." Kovani warns with a sudden urgency to her tone. As if this were life-saving advice. She lowers her voice a little, a conspiratorial explanation offered to Gabi, something that moms, in their hurry to do things like 'get clean' will not tell you. "..stops brain-freeze." the hand that'd been squeezing Ambrosia's brought up to tap an indicative finger against Liora's forehead. "A shower, /would/ be pleasant. You sure they're not going to put the whole base on lockdown and haul me off on espionage charges if we go find one?" For her last question, Kovani is awarded her first 'mom' look of 'cut the crap'. "I'm confident they will not," Ambrosia responds curtly. "We'll still be within the confines of medbay, after all." Gabi, having caught the look, dons a secretive, shit-eating grin between mouthfuls of ice cream. Ice cream *does* make everything better. "Let's go for a walk," and with that, mother hen leads the procession, leaving her sheet behind. Gabi almost leaves *her* safety item behind, but makes a quick dash back to snatch Krayt dragon up and totes it along protectively under her arm. She's yet to leave it fully abandoned since landing. Besides...it looks like it could use a bath, too.